“Blood is thicker than water.”

We hear that all the time, don’t we? A colloquialism that implies we should put family above all else. (If you’ve been reading some of my other blog posts, it will come as no surprise to you that this is something my mother always loved to say, especially when it came to matters relating to my stepsiblings at the time.)

Well, what if I told you that this is suspected to be a bastardized version of a longer figure of speech that actually means the exact opposite?

The original turn of phrase purportedly is, “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” In other words, the bonds we choose to make, and keep, are stronger than the relations bestowed on us at birth.

No one understands the core truth of this better than people who have had to distance themselves from toxic family members. Among all the feelings that take over in such situations, chiefly there is a sense of isolation, of lost connection. There are times when, even if you can objectively tell yourself it isn’t true, you feel ever so alone, like you have no one. There’s not just a loss of familial relationship, but also a loss of shared history, that drops off with a slow slide and big crash, like a huge chunk of ice breaking off a melting glacier.

Breaking a toxic family pattern generally feels like you’ve actively decided to be that sad lonely polar bear floating off into the distance on a little ice floe. Ya know, the ones we see in those depressing commercials trying to raise money to fight the inevitability of climate change (which I am calling inevitable here because not enough people take it seriously…but that’s a soapbox for another day). But, sometimes, I like to think – when I’m not caught up in lamentations about my own isolating choices – that we don’t get to see the whole picture there. Maybe what those commercials don’t show is the community of other, more kind and selfless polar bears that the little ice floe is floating toward, waiting to welcome the newcomer into the fold there, to comfort him after all the pain of the glacier that he’s leaving behind, with bears who had only caused harm.

(Okay, maybe I’m operating in romanticized metaphorical imagery again. Force of habit. Metaphors are my preferred coping mechanism when I’m not able to tackle reality head-on yet.)

What I’m trying to say is that even when we’re wrestling with the impossible but necessary decision to distance ourselves from toxic family, there’s better connection on the horizon. It can be difficult to see that, in the thick of loneliness and heartbreak, and it doesn’t help that said toxic people and their gullible allies will likely never see it at all. Honestly, if I had a dollar for every time I had someone say to me, “she’s still your mother,” I would be well on my way to paying off my student loans. Hmm, maybe I’ll start charging money for when people feel entitled to try to tell me that…but anyway, my point is, bonds we choose are more powerful than bonds of obligation.

Family isn’t blood. Family is what you make it. If you’re lucky enough, you develop a kinship with people who love you for exactly who you are. My small chosen family of close friends means so much to me, because I can trust that their interest in my life and well-being are genuine. I can trust them, because I know that their interest in turn is by choice, not because it’s expected of them. It probably goes without saying that trust is very difficult for me; I don’t offer it freely. My entire life is very much by design nowadays, and I vastly prefer it that way. Having a well-established chosen family doesn’t discount the pain that occasionally resurfaces when thinking about the lack of actual blood relatives, it doesn’t take that loss away. But I figure fostering relationships for a chosen family is much healthier than an exclusionary life of complete solitude (think Tom Hanks in Castaway), so, ya know, I’d vastly recommend it over that alternative.

Familial connections are great, if they’re healthy. And if you reach a point where you can have a healthy relationship with someone you’re biologically related to, and you make the choice to maintain that relationship…well, that’s something beautiful for sure. The key component of it all is that matter of choice. No one has an inherent right to your time, energy, emotions, or resources, regardless of what kind of title or genetic connection they may hold or be bestowed with. You are yours, and yours alone, to give to those who you feel deserve it most.

“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” What matters most is not the blood in our veins – it’s the blood we choose.